Chihiro Returns
by ExquisiteInsanity
Summary: Chihiro, now 17, is with a few coworkers who have decided to stop and rest right beside the path to the Spirit Bathhouse, and one of her friends hears a few noises. Someone else convinces her to investigate, and Chihiro finds herself back in the Spirit Realm. {It's not as bad as it sounds, honest.}
1. Chapter 1

Chihiro sighed, looking at the pathway to her left. She didn't even know why they were out here, the building was about a four minute walk and they were supposed to be working! Why did everyone stop?

She glared at the pathway, then her eyes widened a bit. _This path looks familiar... I wonder why. _Chihiro thought, rubbing the scar on the back of her head.

Funny how though the incident had happened about six years ago, the wound still hurt from time to time. Not to mention the constant migraine. The doctors hadn't mentioned _that_ part of brain damage.

When Chihiro was eleven years old, a few months after something happened that she _knew_ was important and she _needed_ to know what it was, Chihiro was running down a side walk trying to catch up with her mother and father. She fell, and somehow it was the left side of the back of her head that made contact. She cracked open her skull, and was in a coma for about a week or two. The doctors performed a few surgeries while she was out, and the brain damage was fine, nothing fatal, a bit of pain here and there about once a month or two. She'd be _fine_, no complications. But they didn't catch one thing, and they didn't know there was even a chance of it until she woke up and that was what went down.

"Who are you? Where am I?"

Of course, her parents were heartbroken that her daughter didn't remember them, but the doctors informed them that, yes, in some severe cases, this does happen. Chihiro had amnesia, and her parents had told her everything they could about her, everything they knew about their daughter. But it wasn't enough. They didn't know about the most crucial parts, the ones Chihiro needed to know, and now here she was. Staring at an unfamiliar-yet-familiar path and trying to remember memories that she just didn't have anymore.

Chihiro was pulled harshly out f her thoughts by a yelp from one of her coworkers, Bethany. Bethany was a hard-worker, at only sixteen. She knew how to work, and she was strong and able to lift heavy objects. Chihiro had a hard time picking up some coal, she had figured this out only last week.

"What's wrong, Bethie?" Chihiro asked. They were friends of sorts, just not very close. Chihiro didn't have a bestfriend.

"I thought i heard something over there, down the pathway."

"Why don't go go check it out, Hiro?" Haru, Bethany's best friend asked. He was just a pain, if you asked Chihiro.

"Don't call me that! And do you know what, maybe I will!" Chihiro glared, spinning around in her yellow vans, storming down the path.

"He just gets me so mad!" Chihiro muttered, running fingers through long brown locks of hair.

She bent upside down and put her hair up with a purple hair tie. Her mom told her she favored purple hair ties.

Chihiro buttoned up her green jacket and pulled the sleeves down, along with yanking down her white tanktop.

She giggled slightly at her choice of attire, a purple hair band, a green button up jean jacket, a white tank top, light pink skinny jeans and yellow Vans.

Then she shrugged a bit, "I'd better hurry up, it's almost sundown."

Chihiro just kept walking forwards, occasionally calling out a "Hello?"

So, she didn't see it coming when she tripped over a rock and tumbled downhill over a river, knocking herself out cold.

* * *

**Yep, I'm gonna write a chaptered story. c: **

**Fair Winds! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey, I'm sorry this took so darn long, it's just that I had it almost done and then my laptop messed up and I lost all of it and I was really mad and didn't wanna rewrite it so naturally it took me longer than expected. **

* * *

Chihiro awoke to a killer headache. She sat up immediately and felt the pain rush to her head, groaning, she clamped her hand around the place where it hurt, just to the right of her scar, and waited for the pain to subside. When it finally did, she brought her hand back in her line of vision and found that her assumption was correct, she was indeed bleeding, and heavily.

"Shoot," she muttered.

She stood up and looked around for any sort of commotion, any activity.

"Hey, look!" she yelped to herself. "Lights, score!"

Making her way to the lights and loud talking, Chihiro kept a firm grasp on the back of her head.

"I feel like it's just getting worse..." Chihiro mumbled.

Chihiro stumbled into the light, somehow going completely unnoticed.

_For some reason, this place looks familiar... _Chihiro thought, her mind and her struggle to regain her lost memories controlling her for the third time that day.

Walking blindly into crowds, Chihiro tripped yet again and landed in front of a boy who was getting yelled at by a frog.

_I must be delusional, what is wrong with me? Although, I strangely feel like I've had this dream before, but I can't tell... It must have been before the fall._

"Master Haku, I just want to know what consumed you when you cut your hair. Why would you do such a thing?" the frog said, it's voice hurt Chihiro's ears, it was really quite annoying...

"Why does it concern you? It isn't as though I even cut it all off, it's not even that short. And why should I keep a child's haircut? I'm already 19 years old," the boy responded, his voice making Chihiro feel as though she needed to remember, and she got a sense of fear. Not fear of the boy, but fear of why did she hear him, she was going to be in danger, she was in a very dangerous situation.

_But how could I even attempt to remember why? I don't know even know anything about myself,_ Chihiro thought sadly.

"Well, I just wanted to know why!" exclaimed the frog.

"Whatever," responded the boy, rolling his eyes.

He looked up and finally seemed to notice the girl standing there wide-eyed, staring at him.

His eyes widened as well and his mouth opened slightly. "Chi-... Chihiro?"

The girl furrowed her brows. "How do you know my name? Who are you? Where am I? Am I dreaming? Why can't I wake up? Were you just talking to a frog?" she sputtered out a lot of questions at once.

Haku did his best to answer them. "I've known you before, Haku, The Spirit Bathhouse, No, and yes I was."

"You've known me before? How young was I?" she asked, her questions coming a bit slower and less rushed this time.

"You were about... ten, I believe. What are you doing here, Chihiro? Didn't you learn your lesson last time? You do realize you can't get back now, right? And there isn't anything I can do to help you? You'll have to get your old job back, Lin never did get another apprentice..." Haku trailed off.

"I gained severe memory loss when I had just turned eleven years old. Bonked my head. Brain damage," Chihiro said, knocking on the side of her head, obviously having decided not to pay attention to the rest of what Haku had said.

A wave of dizziness hit her and she fell to her knees, no longer able to stand. "Do you have a bandage, maybe? I fell down the river and slammed my head onto a rock. I got knocked out, too, and I bet those stupid brats didn't even care I didn't show back up! Ungrateful idiots, if I had known I was gonna hit my head and start having delusions I wouldn't have agreed! That Haru just gets me so worked up sometimes, he's so annoying! It's bad enough I have to work with him and go to school with the brat, but he has to insist upon hanging around me, too? Why does he gotta hang around when I'm there!? Can't him and Bethie just go somewhere else? I mean I enjoy her company, but he makes me so mad! I'll do anything to prove that idiot wrong, and hurt his swollen ego," Chihiro ranted to Haku.

"You know, I think _that__'s _the problem here," muttered Haku.

"What did you just say! I'm not the problem, he is!" Chihiro yelled.

_Well, she sure has gotten more aggressive since her memory loss,_ thought Haku.

"Okay, okay. Look, it's after dark so there isn't any turning back, now," Haku sighed. "Everyone still remembers you, so I think it's safe to say we can just go straight back up to Yubaba and sign you back up for work. I don't know when your next opening to go home will be, though."

"Who's Yubaba?" the confused girl asked.

The boy sighed and stood up. "C'mon," was his only response as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her up off of her knees.

They walked across a bridge into a large bathhouse, while everyone stared amazed, with wide eyes. Haku pulled Chihiro along, to an elevator and up to the highest floor it'd go. This repeated one more time, before Haku knocked on some fancy doors and was answered with a low "Come in."

Walking inside, they made it to Yubaba's study where she sat before Chihiro grasped her bleeding head and fell to the ground.


End file.
